Susteren Abbey (Dutch : Abdij van Susteren) is a former Benedictine abbey at Susteren near Roermond, in the Dutch province of Limburg, founded in the 8th century. The former abbey church is now St. Amelberga's Basilica.
Susteren Abbey (Dutch : Abdij van Susteren) is a former Benedictine abbey at Susteren near Roermond, in the Dutch province of Limburg, founded in the 8th century. The former abbey church is now St. Amelberga's Basilica.
The abbey is first recorded in 711, in a letter from one of the monks, Ansbald, to Willibrord, bishop of Utrecht. [1]
Early in 714 Pepin of Herstal and his wife Plectrude sent Saint Willibrord letters of conveyance and protection for the monastery, permitting free election of abbots. The Benedictine foundation served as a refuge for the missionaries working in Frisia and the Netherlands.
It was destroyed by the Vikings in 882 and refounded as a house of secular canonesses, whose first abbess was Saint Amelberga of Susteren, who died about 900.
The Lotharingian King Zwentibold, a benefactor of the abbey and either the father or the brother of the abbesses Benedicta and Cecilia, was buried (according to a later tradition) in Susteren Abbey in about 900.
Also buried there are Saint Wastrada, who died in the mid-8th century, and Saint Gregory of Utrecht (d. about 775/777), a companion of Saint Boniface in his missions to Friesia, and later abbot of the Martinsstift in Utrecht.
The abbey was suppressed at the end of the 18th century when the French Revolution spilled over into the Low Countries. The church alone remains.
The abbey church, one of the major examples of Romanesque architecture in the Netherlands, although marred by a poor restoration in 1885-1890, was built in the 11th century. It was clearly influenced by the Ottonian minster church of Essen Abbey. It was dedicated to Amelberga in 1886, after authentication of the relics kept here. On 6 September 2007 the church was declared a basilica minor.
The Bishopric of Utrecht was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries, in the present-day Netherlands. From 1024 to 1528, as one of the prince-bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire, it was ruled by the bishops of Utrecht. The Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht must not be confused with the Diocese of Utrecht, which extended beyond the Prince-Bishopric and over which the bishop exercised spiritual authority.
Susteren is a city in the Dutch province of Limburg. It is located in the municipality of Echt-Susteren, about 7 km northwest of Sittard. It was a separate municipality until 2003, when it was merged with Echt. Susteren received city right in 1276.
The Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands, sometimes known as the Dutch Roman Catholic Church of the Old Episcopal Order, the Church of Utrecht , or Jansenist Church of Holland, is an Old Catholic jurisdiction originating from the Archdiocese of Utrecht (695–1580). The Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands is the mother church of the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht.
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Gregory of Utrecht was born of a noble family at Trier. He became a follower of Saint Boniface, who sent him to study at the Monastery of Saint Michael at Ohrdruf. He then accompanied Boniface on his missionary journeys. In 750, Boniface appointed Gregory abbot of St. Martin's Monastery in Utrecht. St. Martin's became a centre of learning and missionary activity. When, in 754, Eoban left to accompany Boniface on their last missionary trip, Gregory was tasked with administering the diocese of Utrecht, which he did faithfully for the next twenty-three years until his death in 776.
The Catholic Church in the Netherlands is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. Its primate is the Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht, currently Willem Jacobus Eijk since 2008. In 2015 Catholicism was the single largest religion of the Netherlands, forming some 23% of the Dutch people, based on in-depth interviewing, down from 40% in the 1960s.
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Echt is a city in the Dutch municipality of Echt-Susteren in the province of Limburg, Netherlands. It was a municipality itself until it merged with the municipality of Susteren on 1 January 2003.
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Saint Amelberga of Susteren was the Benedictine abbess of Susteren Abbey, Netherlands in the 9th century AD; she died about 900 AD. Her remains are kept in the former abbey church in Susteren, which was dedicated to her in the 19th century. Her feast is celebrated on November 21.
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The Basilica of Our Lady is a Romanesque church in the historic center of Maastricht, Netherlands. The church is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption and is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Diocese of Roermond. The church is often referred to as the Star of the Sea, after the church's main devotion, Our Lady, Star of the Sea.
Thorn Abbey or the Imperial Abbey of Thorn was an imperial abbey of the Holy Roman Empire in what is now the Netherlands. The capital was Thorn. It was founded in the 10th century and remained independent until 1794, when it was occupied by French troops. The self-ruling abbey enjoyed imperial immediacy and belonged to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle.
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